Queerness and Gryphons
I've been busy getting Pridelord finalized, so I've been sleepy a lot this Pride Month, but I wanted to take a moment just to talk about queerness in gryphon fiction. I'll talk about my own books in a moment, but if you want queer-friendly gryphon fiction, there's a lot out there. The Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey (and sometimes illustrated or cowritten by Larry Dixon) are full of queer characters. The Black/White/Silver Gryphon Trilogy is a classic, and the new Gryphon in Light / Gryphon's Valor series brings back gryphon protagonists and includes trans and nonbinary characters. In fact, the gryphon love interest and the feline avatar of the fire god are both named after a trans-femme and trans-masc fans. Though if you specifically want trans *gryphons*, you may want to check out The Gryphon Generation series by Alexander Bizzell. Isabell, the violet-backed starling gryphon, is trans, among other queerness. And Legends of Heraldale is a gryphon series full of trans and genderfluid characters by Brian McNatt. It's pretty hard to find genderfluid characters in epic fantasy, let me tell you as someone who is always looking! If you haven't read Song of the Summer King by Jess E. Owen, the sequel series set in the same world with some of the same characters, Rise of the Dragon Star, adds in new queer characters and establishes some old characters as queer. It's set at a middle grade age. For my own books, while there's a few gay, lesbian, bisexual, and asexual characters in the very first book, the main trans-masc character is introduced in Eyrie but transitions slowly. There are hints from the start ("[he] won't wear his sisters hand-me-downs"), but his egg cracks in book four, Reevesbane, and by book five, The Ruins of Crestfall, he's well into his transition. Once you get to Pridelord (#8), the cast has nonbinary stormtails and Whisper, a trans-femme character. I started GryphIns before I begun transitioning but after my husband had come out as trans to friends. If you're looking for trans gryphon characters written by trans authors, give me a try =] Or try some of the other authors here. If you want trans dragons by a trans man, try out the Reunification series by Glenn Birmingham. The first book, Dragon Source, hits the ground running, so the queerness is more subtext as it's about survival (and dragons). Once you get to Dragon Bound and book three, inside the city of dragons, it's a lot more clear how trans all of dragon culture is. I think a lot of us queer kids grew up reading fantasy that didn't yet make space for us. And for Millennials, while the occasional gay or lesbian character might show up, something like Brightly Burning might be the first time we saw any ace rep. I'm glad those same queer fantasy readers grew up into fantasy authors, so now if you want to read trans epic fantasy protagonists written by trans authors, you can. And I hope we see more queerness out there. (Looking at you, genderfluid epic fantasy protagonists. Where are you?) If you have any epic fantasy (or, better yet, creature fantasy!) with trans PoV characters written by trans authors, feel free to leave a comment =] I'm always looking for new things to read. Happy Pride Month! May yours be full of trans gryphons and dragons. May your recommendations be flooded with trans-masc harpies and trans-femme satyrs and nonbinary sphinx. Support queer authors and queer fiction <3
